No more daily calls to Microsft for the Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy utility

DailyTechreported earlier this
month that Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy tool was
phoning home daily in order to determine whether a machine was running a valid
install of Windows or not. It was also shown that the tool takes note of a user's
system configuration along with their language and location settings.

Microsoft, looking to douse some of the fires that enraged
over the announcement of the daily checks, yesterday released an updated
version of the WGA anti-piracy tool via its Windows Update system. The new
version of the WGA utility no longer makes daily calls back to Microsoft. The
company did, however, state that the tool can still check on occasion whether
the Windows installation is genuine or not. eWeek
reports:

The WGA tool, which is
a mandatory part of the Redmond, Wash., software giant's battle to curb Windows
piracy, includes two separate components: WGA validation and WGA notifications.
Validation determines whether the copy of Windows installed is pirated or not,
and Notifications is set up to nag users whom Microsoft believes are not
running "genuine Windows" and "suggest" where they can
"learn more about the benefits of using genuine Windows software."

For users that would like to completely disable or remove
previous version of the WGA utility, Microsoft has issued a new knowledge base
article which takes you
through the motions steps by step. Installing the latest version of the WGA
tool will override the offending version; however, those who want to get rid of
the tool altogether will have to do some registry editing. If you’re squeamish
about digging through your registry – or just aren’t too concerned with the WGA
checks -- you may want to sit this one out.

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count me one of them... i have a pre-installed windows on my laptop and hell it's telling me that my copy is not genuine, WTF?! and i just HATE it when i call up MS and then they tell me to call up my laptop manufacturer because it was pre-installed... WTF?! this is NOT my laptop manufacturer's OS, what the hell are they suppose to do about it when in fact this WGA crap is MS's move... hope this "news" resolves my concern then................. and oh, this also bugged other OEM version users i believe...

so for those "pre-installed" windows users, don't even bother calling your laptop/desktop manufacturers as they just can't give you good answers then... this is MS's crappy move in the first place...

Fine, so long as they pay everyone for their time. Remember, we are considering people who have ALREADY PAID for windows. I for one certainly do not volunteer to jump through hoops to keep using the product they've already collected payment for. How about I dictate that they now jump through hoops in order to KEEP that payment?

Doesn't work one way and it can't then work the other. A paid-for license is a contract and can't be altered later even if one party tries to pull a "we can alter it later" clause, within limits. Having a component automatically install and then accuse of stealing software and shuttign down the OS certianly exceeds any reasonable interpretation of that, and would clearly be cause for a class-action lawsuit.

Besides that lawsuit, as already mentioned I'd expect to be paid for the time to fix their mistake. Downtime can cost money and nobody in a free society should be forced to call in to retain their property- the working licensed software, that is, the license itself is their property.